Crossing the Chasm at Calamu: Real-Time Lessons From the ‘Scary Land’ Between Early Adopters and Scale

Crossing the Chasm at Calamu: Real-Time Lessons From the ‘Scary Land’ Between Early Adopters and Scale

Most founders talk about crossing the chasm in retrospect, once they’ve safely reached the other side. The narrative gets cleaned up. The struggles get minimized. The lessons get packaged into tidy frameworks.

But what about the founders still in the middle of it? The ones operating in what Paul Lewis calls “that kind of scary land where we’re not quite at scale”?

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Paul Lewis, CEO and Co-Founder of Calamu, offered something rare: a real-time account of crossing the chasm while actually crossing it. His candid assessment of where Calamu stands—and the discipline required to resist “boiling the ocean”—reveals lessons that only make sense when you’re living through the uncertainty.

The Book That Terrified a Category Creator

Before diving into where Calamu stands today, Paul’s relationship with Geoffrey Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm” sets important context.

“Crossing the Chasm was probably the most terrifying book I’ve ever read in my life as a technology start up. It’s such a scary book to read, but so much good information there.”

This isn’t hyperbole. For category creators, the chasm is particularly treacherous. You’re not just asking mainstream customers to adopt a new product—you’re asking them to adopt a new way of thinking about the problem. The early adopters who love your vision don’t predict how the mainstream will respond to unfamiliar categories.

Paul’s description of the book as “terrifying” reveals he understands the stakes. And his willingness to discuss where Calamu currently sits shows rare founder transparency.

The Honest Assessment: “Right in the Middle”

When asked where Calamu is in their chasm-crossing journey, Paul doesn’t hedge or spin.

“Well, we’re right in the middle of crossing it. So we’re in that kind of scary land where we’re not quite at scale. We’re just getting to that point. And we’re looking at all things product market, fit, messaging. What exactly is the value prop that we’re going after?”

Read that carefully. Right in the middle. Not quite at scale. Still figuring out product-market fit, messaging, and value proposition.

This is the reality most founders live but few discuss publicly. You have early traction. You have a vision. You have customers. But you haven’t yet found the repeatable, scalable motion that takes you mainstream.

The “scary land” label is perfect. You’re past the stage where passion and hustle alone drive growth, but you haven’t reached the stage where systems and process take over. You’re in between—the most uncomfortable place to be.

The Multifaceted Benefits Trap

Paul identifies the specific challenge making Calamu’s chasm-crossing difficult: too many good things to say.

“We’re kind of multifaceted with benefits that we bring. So we feel like we bring so much benefit, but we can’t boil the ocean. So what we’re trying to do is we’re really trying to zone in on the one thing that is really going to allow us to get to scale.”

This is the paradox of powerful platforms creating new categories. You’ve built something that solves multiple problems in novel ways. You see ten value propositions. Each one resonates with some segment of your early adopters.

But trying to message all ten simultaneously is “boiling the ocean”—and it prevents crossing the chasm. Mainstream customers need singular clarity. They need to understand immediately: “This solves my specific problem in a way nothing else does.”

The discipline Paul describes—”zone in on the one thing”—is harder than it sounds. It requires choosing what not to emphasize, which feels like leaving revenue on the table. But without that focus, you never build the concentrated force needed to break through to mainstream adoption.

The Bell Curve Pattern That Defies Conventional Wisdom

Adding complexity to Calamu’s chasm-crossing is an unusual adoption pattern that challenges standard go-to-market sequencing.

“We’re really seeing a real bell curve here. So we’re seeing small, medium businesses are kind of signing up pretty quickly. They get it. They see the value prop. They get it. And then we’re getting a lot of attention from large enterprise, which is interesting to me. Right. And it’s really the two ends of the bell curve that we’re seeing the most activity right now.”

Standard chasm-crossing theory suggests starting with innovators and early adopters, then moving to early majority in a sequential pattern. But Calamu is seeing adoption at both extremes—SMBs and Fortune 500s—while the middle market remains slower.

Paul explains the enterprise interest: “Large enterprise, they are innovators. While they typically move slowly, they don’t move slowly, necessarily with cyber. And they see emerging technologies as being very important to their future.”

This creates an interesting challenge: do you focus on the SMB motion that’s moving quickly, or the enterprise deals that are larger but slower? The temptation is to pursue both simultaneously (boiling the ocean again), but that splits focus and resources.

The Product-Market Fit Refinement in Progress

Paul’s transparency about still refining product-market fit while in the chasm is instructive.

The initial applications emerging clarify where fit is strongest: “The first applications that we’re seeing are typically around sensitive data, where there’s a long term data requirement and data has to be moved from on prem to the cloud. And this is a great solution to make that happen.”

This specificity—sensitive data with retention requirements moving to cloud—is narrower than Calamu’s full vision of protecting all data everywhere. But it’s a concrete beachhead that creates focus.

The cloud migration angle addresses a specific anxiety: “When you go to the cloud, you’re actually putting your hands, your data into the hands of a third party. Right? So for the first time, you’re taking it out of your complete control and you have to control one of the hyperscalers, whether it be Amazon or Microsoft or Google oracle or whoever else. But you have to trust another company. And that’s scary. That’s a scary thing.”

This framing—reducing cloud trust anxiety for sensitive data during migration—is more specific than “we protect data at the data layer.” It’s the kind of focused value proposition that helps cross the chasm.

The Mindset Challenge That Slows Mainstream Adoption

Understanding what slows chasm-crossing helps inform the strategy to accelerate it. For Calamu, the challenge is clear.

“The single greatest challenge for us is it’s a change in mindset, right? So nobody really before was thinking about protecting the data at the data layer. They were thinking about protecting the infrastructure. And there’s billions, trillions of dollars spent protecting the infrastructure.”

Early adopters embrace new mindsets quickly. They’re comfortable with paradigm shifts. But the mainstream requires different messaging and more validation before unlearning old approaches.

The good news Paul discovered: “So we’re not saying you don’t need to do that, but we’re saying, look, that’s not working as well as we all hoped it would work. So let’s look at protecting the data. Even if the data is removed from your control. So changing that mindset is really the greatest thing, the greatest challenge that we’ve had partly education, not a lot of education, because as soon as we kind of talk through it and explain the process and how it works, people kind of get it right away, and then they get excited about it.”

The education curve is shorter than expected—once you get someone to consider the alternative. The challenge is getting mainstream buyers to pause and question their assumptions in the first place.

The Real-Time Lessons for Other Chasm-Crossers

Paul’s candid assessment offers several tactical lessons for founders in similar positions:

On the multifaceted benefits trap: Having ten things your product does well creates messaging paralysis. The discipline is identifying the one thing that drives scale, even when it means de-emphasizing other legitimate benefits.

On non-sequential adoption: If you’re seeing interest at both ends of the market spectrum, don’t assume your strategy is wrong. Different segments adopt for different reasons at different speeds. The question is which motion to optimize first.

On product-market fit during the chasm: PMF isn’t binary. You can have fit with early adopters while still refining fit for mainstream segments. This isn’t failure—it’s the normal state of chasm-crossing.

On mindset challenges: When your category requires unlearning old approaches, education becomes your primary GTM motion. The question isn’t “can we educate fast enough?” but “are we getting the right people to consider alternatives?”

On public transparency: Paul’s willingness to say “we’re right in the middle of crossing it” creates more value than most polished success narratives. The scary land is where most companies live most of the time.

The chasm isn’t a gap you leap across in one bound. It’s a sustained effort to find the focused value proposition that mainstream customers understand immediately. And sometimes, the most valuable lesson is simply knowing you’re not alone in that scary land between early traction and true scale.